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Wednesday, June 01, 2005

June 1st Update

It's been awhile since I had time to blog. Lots of stuff going on here. For one thing, the in-laws visited for the past week, heading home this morning. They sneaked out this morning an hour and a half earlier than they had told us to expect, so we didn't even get to say goodbye. We just saw the car pulling out. Argh! At least we had lovely weather for their visit and they enjoyed the children, and my mother-in-law washed dishes constantly and my father-in-law worked on the dining room remodel with Barry, so they were a big help in those ways.

Another thing that happened was that I have been offered a promotion within the company I work for, Medquist. We've been working on this for a couple of weeks now and the actual offer came through last night. I'm about to send off the email accepting it. I will be a supervisor of medical transcriptionists, working on scheduling so that contracted turnaround times are met and the MTs get as much work as they need and want without feeling completely overwhelmed (or so that is my assignment). I need to travel to Baltimore in mid June for training. I'm excited about the trip, but not happy about leaving my family, even for a few days.

And finally we have yet another pet in the family: Lucy Goose.

Evidently the US Postal Service quit contracting with FedEx for its air freight and switched to USAir, which is, of course, in bankruptcy. So it's cancelling flights and leaving laden jets on runways, sometimes for days. My friend Kathleen ordered a batch of ducklings and goslings from a hatchery, and they were caught in this mess, arriving at her house after a week rather than the 1-2 days that is hoped for. It was horrible. All but 4 goslings were dead. The four survived by cannibalism. Geese are vegetarians by nature, so these were confused little geese. Three of them bounced back and switched to a proper goose diet and began rapidly making up lost ground, but one just couldn't get it through her little head that she has plenty to eat now. She was attacking the other goslings and doing serious damage to wings and necks.

So my friend asked us to take her for a couple of weeks for some serious lovin' therapy and see if we can't get her turned around. She's isolated from my chickens and given lots of good starter crumble, plus I've been putting her on the lawn quite a bit so she can taste grass, white clover, sorrel and dandelion greens. She's eating very well and growing almost visibly. And she is so sweet! She follows people and is frantic if left behind. She cries piteously if left alone in her wire cage for even a moment, so in desperation, we finally got my youngest's largest doll, a 34-inch companion doll, and sat her outside the cage with her face turned toward the gosling, and that did the trick. Lucy sits as close as she can to the doll and talks quietly to her by the hour.

If after her two weeks probation are up, she can be reintegrated with the other young geese, we will have succeeded. If she is still imprinted for hurting the other geese, then she will have to be destroyed.